


Hugs

by Enjolras1832



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil
Genre: Gen, Modern Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-09
Updated: 2013-04-09
Packaged: 2017-12-07 23:18:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/754267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enjolras1832/pseuds/Enjolras1832
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Jehan informs the Amis that Enjolras gives the best hugs. Everyone then attempts to get hugs from Enjolras. Aka craziness ensues." Prompt from the LJ Kink Meme Round 4, page 18.</p>
<p>It kind of popped into my head and ran away from me, so here we go...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hugs

**Author's Note:**

> This is kind of short, but it wouldn't leave me alone until I wrote it, so I had to get it down. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

Enjolras was hiding.

He was hiding in his room, within his apartment, with both the main door and his own door locked up tight. He was being as quiet as possible and thanked every deity in existence that he didn’t share a room with any of Les Amis and that Jehan was the only one with a key. It was finally the weekend, so he could avoid the craziness that was occurring beyond the door in the world at large.

Or rather, the craziness of his friends.

He had no idea what had set them off, but his usually moderately well behaved {he couldn’t say well behaved, because he was pretty sure that they got into more general trouble than most} and smart friends had been acting absolutely insane the entire week. Enjolras had found himself ducking and dodging everyone with the exception of Jehan, who had taken to throwing him looks full of apology, with a small frown on his face and slight worry or concern in his eyes.

This dodging of his friends had become more and more necessary as the week continued, bringing him to now: barricaded in his room with all of the lights out {save the small, crappy lamp on his desk so that he could still work}, hoping that no one would think that he was home. Especially after last night.

The night before, he had gone to the Musain with every intention of holding a proper meeting, hoping that things would go back to normal, but he couldn’t have been more wrong. When he had gotten there, things seemed to be progressing normally, until suddenly, he had _felt_ the very atmosphere of the place change. Enjolras had left shortly thereafter, rushing to the nearest exit, Les Amis on his heels, as he fled.

Running at full speed back to his apartment had left him breathing heavily against his door, panicked. He had locked the door rapidly, thrown his things on the table near the door, and had proceeded to crawl to his room, not daring to turn on any lights and alert them where he had gone, hoping they would assume that he would go somewhere else first, because who ran home when they were trying to avoid someone?

We had never been so thankful for Jehan having the only key to his apartment aside from himself in his entire life: when they had come to the door, without a key and with no lights on, they had thankfully left, assuming that he wasn’t there. He didn’t think that they had come back, but he wasn’t going to venture out into the main room to check until he absolutely had too either.

Worst of all, he had absolutely no idea _why_.

They seemed to be following him with their arms wide open for some reason well beyond the realm of his understanding, and with an array of expressions: from pitiful, like Grantaire and Combeferre, to maniacal, like Courfeyrac. They had slowly gotten more and more insane as the week went on, following him to classes, and basically everywhere. On top of it all, he couldn’t, for the life of him understand _what_ exactly it was that they wanted.

2 hours later, he had to leave his room, because as desperate as he was to avoid his friends, there was no way that he was going pee anywhere but in his bathroom. Which was, of course, not attached to his bedroom. Slowly, he stalked to his door and placed his ear against the door, listening for any sound. Hearing no other noises, he slowly opened his door, and peaked out his door, slowly checking both sides. Seeing no one, he tiptoed his way to the washroom.

Coming out of the washroom, he opened the door to find Jehan standing impatiently on the other side. Yelping in surprise, he sprung backwards in a move that would’ve made his fencing teacher proud and slammed the door shut, before locking it quickly. Realizing that he was trapped, he decided that he would have to wait Jehan out.

20 minutes later, a sigh reached his ears and Jehan broke the silence. 

“Enj?” Jehan’s timid voice came from the other side of the door. “Enj, I’m not here to hurt you. I just want to talk.” Enjolras mumbled that he was sure that none of his other friends wanted to hurt him either but that hadn’t stopped them from stalking him for the entire week. “Enj, I can explain why they’ve been following you.” That got Enjolras’ attention. Hesitantly, he re-approached the door and unlocked it, opening it slowly. Jehan was still there, though he’d backed up a step or two. Enjolras looked at him critically, wondering if it was a trick. “I promise on my poetry that this isn’t a trick.” Jehan swore, which was enough for Enjolras to open the door and come out.

“Does anyone else know that you’re here?” he asked softly, still a little worried. Jehan gave him a small smile and shook his head. Sighing in relief, Enjolras motioned him towards the living room. Jehan was a little jumpy, which in turn was leaving Enjolras a tad jumpy, but there was very little he could do about it now that he had said that he would listen. Or motioned that he would listen rather, but Jehan would take them both as the same thing and he really didn’t want to hurt Jehan.

“Its all my fault.” Jehan blurted out, confusing Enjolras momentarily, before he realized exactly what it was that Jehan meant when he said that, causing Enjolras to shoot to his feet in surprise.

“WHAT?!?!?” he asked loudly. “Jehan,” he continued after calming himself down for a moment, noticing the way that Jehan had flinched slightly at his raised voice, wondering what part the poet played in this entire mess “what did you do?” Jehan was looking decidedly nervous as he braided and un-braided the bottom of his hair, but after taking a shaky breath, the poet began talking.

“Do you remember last weekend when I came to you in tears over Marie-Claire and I breaking up?” he asked, looking up at Enjolras shyly. Enjolras nodded slowly, sitting back down on the couch beside his friend. Jehan had come to him late on Friday night, making very little sense, crying and just looking generally upset. Not one to abandon a friend in need, he had gently led Jehan to his own bed, where Jehan had slept.

The next morning, after making him breakfast, Jehan and Enjolras had had a long discussion that had ended in Jehan feeling a little better about the break up and leaving with his poetry back to being about beauty and no longer about the sadness that he had been feeling, or depression, or anything else that was seldom an aspect of Jehan’s poetry.

“Do you remember the hug you gave me?” Jehan asked timidly, causing Enjolras to blink at him. Thinking back, he remembered a quick hug that he had given his friend before the young man had left to remind Jehan that Enjolras was there whenever he needed to talk.

“Jehan, I don’t understand. What does that have to do with…” Enjolras started, confused. Jehan held up a hand to stop him from continuing. A blush had spread across Jehan’s face and he stuttered it three times before Enjolras could finally understand what he was trying to say.

“I…well, that is to say that…well I…I may have shared that…well I may have told Les Amis that…I may have said that you give the best hugs.” Jehan hid his face in his hands while Enjolras sat there blinking confusedly. This was not what he had been expecting when he finally found out the motivation behind the following.

“You’re honestly telling me that I’ve spent the week getting stalked by our friends because you told them that I…give the best hugs.” Enjolras murmured softly, prompting a nod from Jehan. Moaning, he lay back on the sofa, looking up at the ceiling for an answer. “You’ve got to be joking me.”

“I’m so sorry Enj, I just…its true and they asked and…well, I’m sorry.” The poet said, sounding miserable. Sighing, Enjolras sat up looking at Jehan. The poet was looking at him with a hint of tears in his eyes and he looked so sad that Enjolras just sighed again. Suddenly, the entire week made a lot more sense to Enjolras. The open arms. The texting of personal and occasionally depressive musings that he hadn’t known what to do with, because he wasn’t the one that people turned to with stuff like that.

Courfeyrac pushing that little old lady that he’d helped across the street out of the way while trying to get access to him.

It all made sense, in a really weird sort of way.

“It’s hardly your fault that our friends are insane, Jehan. So…what are the odds of them forgetting this and leaving me alone?” Jehan snorted before he could help it and then looked mortified that he had done so, making Enjolras grin. “I didn’t think so either.” Sighing, he contemplated. He really didn’t want to be stalked for the rest of the week…they had a protest to plan and a…

A protest to plan.

_They had a protest to plan._

Face splitting into a grin, Enjolras turned to Jehan, who suddenly looked a little afraid. That look on Enjolras’ face often ended in people getting into trouble of some kind—that was the look he wore when those teenagers that were annoying him while he was working at the library had finally done something that could actually get them into trouble over. That was the face he wore when the police tried to take them down at a riot. That was the face that he wore when Enjolras gave someone just enough rope to hang themselves and _then they did_.

He didn’t like that smile.

He had never liked that smile.

He had a feeling he would never like that smile.

“Jehan, I do believe that I have a plan.”

***

Monday morning brought with it a nice cold morning and a group of baffled Amis minus Grantaire, who had outright refused to show up first thing in the morning after a weekend of drinking, sitting in the café Musain. Not that they could tell you why they were sitting there exactly. They just knew that Jehan had told them to show up, so here they were. Because Jehan never requested things like this, so they were all assuming that it was something big.

9 sharp brought Jehan through the doors of the café and towards them, wearing his favourite floral print jeans and his “good luck” shirt, provoking confusion from Les Amis. Jehan never wore his “good luck” shirt unless he was pretty sure that he needed it, and they were just here to talk…weren’t they?

“I’m not really sure how to say this…so, I’m just going to say it. Enjolras knows that you’ve been following him around for hugs.” Confusion spread through Les Amis. What did that have to do with anything? “He has decided to make this of benefit to the cause: for 20 dollars in the pot for the charity that Enjolras is supporting this week, he’ll give you a hug.” Jehan hesitated a moment before he continued, not looking up at them to gauge their reaction. “That’s not to say that you’ll always have to pay for hugs, because you won’t of course,” he babbled, “you’re his friends, and he cares for you, but he thought that it would be a good way to raise some money for charity, and so he thought that he’d use it and…”

“Jehan.” It was Courfeyrac, a smile on his face as he stopped the poet. “None of us are complaining. Its actually a good idea…” Jehan could hear the ‘but’ in his tone of voice, as Courfeyrac’s face split into a triumphant smirk. “In fact, its such a good idea that I think I’m going to let everyone I know, know that the marble lover of liberty is willing to give them a hug for 20 dollars that he’s going to donate to charity.” Cackling madly, Courfeyrac started texting. Shrugging, most of their friends did the same. Jehan moaned and placed his head in his hands, not sure if he wanted to laugh or cry.

His friends assumed that it was because of what they were doing, as Jehan would have to be the one to explain this to Enjolras.

They were wrong.

Damn it, he should never have bet against Enjolras!

He should’ve known that Enjolras knew their friends well enough to know how they would react, especially Courfeyrac. Jehan couldn’t believe that he’d thought, even for a moment, that Enjolras’ plan wouldn’t work. Bemoaning his fate, he hurried upstairs to inform his leader that he had been right on all accounts.

As soon as he entered, Enjolras looked up at him. Then he smiled broadly from the sheer look on Jehan’s face, and Enjolras motioned to the jar with a simple hole cut into the top, painted black so no one could see how much was in it, with the name of his charity on the front. Grumbling about his own stupidity, he pulled out his wallet and placed his 20-dollar contribution in the jar.

Then, he returned downstairs to let the others up.

***

The general consensus was that Jehan was right in saying that Enjolras was the best hugger.

At least, that’s what Les Amis decided at the end of the day, after everyone had gotten at least one hug from him {Courfeyrac had paid twice, once with Les Amis, the other time when all of his girlfriends, new and old had shown up}. No one but Jehan seemed to notice how _smug_ Enjolras was about the entire thing.

The end of the day brought with it a sizable amount for Enjolras to donate to the charity and after counting it twice with Jehan, he sent Jehan down to the bank as he had to catch up on a couple of things that he’d not done while he’d had what Jehan had begun to refer to as his “Hugging Booth” day. Working on his essay for International Politics, he had just begun to get into the flow of the words when Grantaire burst through the door, surprising him.

Grantaire was the only one that he hadn’t seen all day, and had thought that he’d see, but he’d shrugged it off. Grantaire was panting, but as soon as he seen Enjolras he burst into a grin.

“I’m not too late!” he crowed, before doing a small victory dance that had Enjolras’ lips quirking into a slight smile. A moment later, Grantaire stopped and fumbling, pulled out a ten dollar bill and change that added up to 20, before he looked shyly and Enjolras. Enjolras looked at Grantaire and noticed for the first time the weary note to his friends face—for the first time, Enjolras thought that maybe he understood his cynicism a little bit. Understood why his friend was so disillusioned with the world and why he was so…why he was so Grantaire.

For the first time, he realized that before him was not a born cynic, but someone who had once flown with the wings of passion before he had fallen, fallen from high in the sky and had been scarred and scared by the passion that had burnt him and caused his downfall. It was because of that that he mocked, and chided, and tried to bring them back to earth…

Grantaire looked like he really needed a hug.

Gently, he pushed the money back towards his friend and stood. He watched as Grantaire’s face began to fall, before he tried to cover it with a blank look. Enjolras moved quicker than Grantaire had anticipated, not really giving him the time to move away, and before Grantaire knew it, Enjolras had Grantaire wrapped in a hug. Grantaire melted into him immediately.

Grantaire had no time to muse on the truth of Jehan’s statement before he realized, quite simply, that their friend was right. Enjolras’ hugs were like a safety cloak of happiness—in his arms, nothing mattered but that particular moment, and he felt warm and happy and loved and fuzzy and all of these other emotions that he hadn’t felt in so long. He let his head come to rest on his friends shoulder even though he was the taller one. Enjolras’ soothingly rubbed down his back and he just felt…wonderful.

They stayed like that for a while, though neither of them could say how long, until they both begun to pull away from one another, almost at the exact same time. Smiling at his friend, Enjolras couldn’t help but tease him.

“Was Jehan right?”

“Damn straight.” Grantaire said, smiling in return. Hesitating, he offered the money once again. “For the charity? I mean, I heard that you were…you know, for charity…” Grantaire looked at him with a mixture of hope and nerves in his eyes. Enjolras, realizing that Grantaire would see it as an insult, same as Éponine would’ve, smiled and pocketed the money.

Both of them walked away having learnt a lesson that day.

***

After that, Enjolras seemed to be a little bit more open with his friends, and they knew that they could come to him about anything, though preferably not when he was in the middle of doing something for one of his protests. Hugs were a little bit more frequent, still not overly often, but more than before, especially amongst his closest friends—Combeferre, Courfeyrac, Jehan and Grantaire {the later simply because Enjolras still believed that the other needed them more than anyone else} and he was generally a bit more affectionate and seemed to smile more as he realized that just because he was a leader didn’t mean that he couldn’t smile.

No one ever forgot, however, the time that they had spent a week stalking him, just to get a hug.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading :)
> 
> Feedback is very much appreciated.


End file.
